It took Austrian man Christopher Ferkl three years or 1,700 hours to build his replica Airbus A380. The working replica has taken to the skies and no doubt many of our aviation-loving viewers would have seen a video of it in flight.

It's unknown why Ferkl produced his A380 replica in the livery of Thai Airways but its striking paint job is a perfect match to the real thing.

According to ch-aviation.com, Thai Airways has six Airbus A380s in its inactive fleet. They have an average age of 9.5 years and are owned by the airline.

In February it emerged that Thai was retiring the A380 from service and had listed two of the aircraft for sale.

The real A380 made its first commercial flight on October 25, 2007, in the colors of Singapore Airlines (SIA). It operated SQ380 from Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) to Australia's Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (SYD).

Both first flights were a success

The replica first flew in 2020, which must have been as nerve-wracking to Ferkl as it was to Airbus in 2005 when the A380 made its maiden flight. Here is Ferkl's first flight:

To do the numbers first, the Airbus A380 replica has been built to a 1/13 scale. It has a wingspan of 20 feet (6.13 meters), is 18.5 feet (5.6 m) long and weighs 226 pounds (102 kilograms).

Just like the A380 with its Rolls-Royce Trent 900 or Engine Alliance GP7200, the replica has four engines. These are JetsMunt 166 turbines that provide around 166N (about 37 pounds) of thrust each.

The aircraft uses a Futaba T18MZ transmitter with dual Futaba 7008SB receivers (Powerbox Royal) and KST servos; two for the Ailerons, two for the Elevators, one for the Rudder, four for the landing flaps, one for the front gear steering, and eight to operate all the gear doors.

The retractable landing gears are Electron with homemade struts and trucks and it carries 2.2 gallons (8.3 liters) of fuel in CMJETS fuel tanks.

According to Interesting Engineering, Ferkl said he has been flying model airplanes for more than three decades, and he always had a special love for the A380 which is why he started building it in September 2017.

He added that building it required a range of tasks and skills, including handling carbon, woodworking, milling and priming. He needed a good knowledge of aerodynamics and said getting the wings right and calculating the center of gravity was also challenging.

It's doing air show flyovers now

More recently the replica was onstage at an air show, reminiscent of many similar flyovers done by the A380.

During the pandemic airlines, including Lufthansa, Air France and Malaysia Airlines, grounded their A380 fleets and will not be bringing them back into service.

Qantas Airways even grounded aircraft it had only just received following multi-million dollar refits. They must have been the smartest-looking aircraft sitting in the desert boneyard.

Thankfully they are roaring back into service as international travel takes off. Sadly though, it's likely the only Thai International A380 you will see is Christopher's Ferkl's replica.

Perhaps it should do a flyover at the 2023 Paris Air show?

Source: Interesting Engineering